This invention relates to a method for treating aluminum metal powder. In a more particular aspect, this invention concerns itself with a facile method of modifying aluminum metal powders in order to improve their combustion efficiency as a fuel for solid rocket propellants.
The increased utilization of rockets, missiles and other propulsion type devices has generated a considerable research effort in an attempt to improve propellant combustion efficiency. It has been suggested for example, that the burn rate may be increased by using non-energetic additives such as ferric oxide, ferrocenes and metal fluorides; or, by using a finer oxidizer blend. However, in the former case, a reduction in specific impulse due to the non-energetic additive is incurred and the latter approach may make processing more difficult.
With this invention, however, it has been found that reacting aluminum metal powders with gaseous hydrogen fluoride overcomes the drawbacks encountered when using untreated aluminum powders as the fuel constituent in solid rocket propellants.